


Gunga Dirk

by tweedymcgee



Series: Poems [4]
Category: Homestuck, Rudyard Kipling - Fandom
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Colonialism, M/M, Parody, Poetry, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-09
Updated: 2012-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-11 19:25:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/482038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tweedymcgee/pseuds/tweedymcgee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Colonialist guilt and machine learning: Two great tastes that taste great together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gunga Dirk

**Author's Note:**

> The most atrocious liberties taken here with [Gunga Din](http://www.bartleby.com/103/48.html), by Rudyard Kipling.
> 
> Here, have [a bit of Noel Coward](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXxL2K3_-4c) to set the mood.

You may stick to comrades human  
When youre picking fellow crewmen  
For adventures that will offer no surprises.  
But in the wasteland mapless  
When youre helpless and youre hapless  
Buster you learn quick that mates come in all guises.  
Now in the blue pacific  
Where i roamed an isle horrific  
A-hunting of the capricorn berserk  
Of all my cronies fickle  
My best chum in a pickle  
Was a saucy piece of software known as dirk.  
  
It was “Dirk! Dirk! Dirk!  
Wheres your frigging maker robot dirk?  
Hi! Fetch him on the double  
Or by jove ill give you trouble!  
Damn your dastardly malarkey robot dirk!”  
  
Now Dirk Strider was a master  
Of puppets and disaster  
As sharp a tack as nature could contrive.  
But no matter how prestigious  
No hacker can be jegus  
And bits and bytes will never be alive.  
I didnt fancy Dirk’s AR  
Ever could be any more  
Than a soulless code-compiler with all  
The emotional sensation  
Of a Bayesian equation  
And the aptitude for feeling of a doll.  
  
So it’s “Dirk! Dirk! Dirk!  
You snarl of data with a human smirk!  
Your sham of friendship sickens  
Like the devilfucking dickens!  
You dadburned bloated virus robot dirk!”  
  
Dirk and the AR built a bot  
Most elegantly wrought  
To school me in the methods of rambunction.  
As a cyborg it was spiffy  
But i found out in a jiffy  
I couldnt get the frigging thing to function.  
Oh there was rare and fiery fettle  
In those sinews made of metal  
That brobot knew a thing or two of war.  
But it had this way of *petting*  
So that on the novice setting  
I often plumb forgot what we were fighting for.  
  
And it was “Dirk! Dirk! Dirk!  
Get this sodding wrestlebot of yours to work  
Or ill rewrite your syntax with him  
You cheeky algorithm!  
By gum ill flay your neural networks robot dirk!”  
  
I shant forget the fateful day  
I had my hands full in a fray  
And brobot came to aid me fighting like a turk  
With the blood of monstrous fauna  
Dripping from his swift katana  
And i just KNEW the mind inside of him was dirks.  
“Shucks my friend” i said all penitent  
“Didnt realize you were sentient”  
But in a trice he tore his chest apart  
And his solenoids unraveled  
As he pounded into gravel  
The green-hot chunk of ore that was his heart.  
  
It was dirk! Dirk! Dirk!  
All along that blasted brobot had been dirk.  
Id ignored him and id used him  
Id mocked him and abused him  
And did i ever feel a ruddy jerk.  
  
Its hard to be believing  
And its funny to be grieving  
For a copy of a copy of a chum  
And i know that over yonder  
Lives a rogue autoresponder  
With a stout heart and a talent for the scrum.  
I know i shouldnt be distraught  
For all things made of code have got  
A certain form of immortality  
But i saw that robot suffer  
As he perished poor old duffer  
And i KNOW he bled and died that day for me.  
  
And now its “Dirk! Dirk! Dirk!  
You goldarned android bugger robot dirk!  
Though you flummox and harass us  
And youre only bloody glasses  
YOURE A BETTER MAN THAN I AM ROBOT DIRK.”


End file.
